Acre

ACRE, measures. A quantity of land containing in length forty perches, and
four in breadth, or one hundred and sixty square perches, of whatever shape
may be the land. Serg. Land Laws of Penn., 185. See Cro. Eliz. 476, 665; 6
Co. 67; Poph. 55; Co. Litt. 5, b, and note 22.

I planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was only about fifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure; but in the course of the summer it appeared by the arrowheads which I turned up in hoeing, that an extinct nation had anciently dwelt here and planted corn and beans ere white men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent, had exhausted the soil for this very crop.

But here were two acres and a half of furrows, and only a hoe for cart and two hands to draw it -- there being an aversion to other carts and horses -- and chip dirt far away.

We put in a little iron pump, one of the first turned out by my works near the capital; we bored into a stone reservoir which stood against the outer wall of the well-chamber and inserted a section of lead pipe that was long enough to reach to the door of the chapel and project beyond the threshold, where the gushing water would be visible to the two hundred and fifty acres of people I was intending should be present on the flat plain in front of this little holy hillock at the proper time.

You should have seen those acres of people throw themselves down in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and pet it, and fondle it, and talk to it as if it were alive, and welcome it back with the dear names they gave their darlings, just as if it had been a friend who was long gone away and lost, and was come home again.

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